MxMIndia

Tag: Maxus

  • Some brands do launch with BTL as their marketing backbone, but that’s not a one-size-fits-all model. A combination of ATL, BTL and Digital is in my mind critical and the most effective, says Vidur Patney, National Director, Maxus Experiential Marketing

    BTL Baatein: Vidur Patney, Maxus… Powered by VISCOMM

    After this education in India and the UK, Vidur Patney, National Director, Maxus Experiential Marketing, has worked for nearly 20 years across the marketing spectrum. Recently, he has worked with Encompass, Dentsu and most recently Globox until joining Maxus earlier this year. In this edition of BTL Baatein, Vidur Patney speaks on the importance marketers give to BTL activity in their overall marketing plan, and more.

    What is the importance of BTL in the world of advertising and promotions?

    Experiential marketing has over the last few years moved more centerstage as a tool to promote and engage with consumers. Advertising has been the medium of choice for years and has largely worked, but today consumers are smarter, more aware and crave personalised interaction, that’s why more and more marketers who want to have one-on-one conversations with consumers are looking at experiential marketing as the medium of choice.

    What would you say is the importance marketers give to BTL activity in their overall marketing plan?

    Brands that need localised solutions are far keener on going down the BTL route, as are brands that need to provide specific personalized information to consumers. The lines are however a bit blurred and the need is defined by the information to be delivered. Having said that, BTL spends are on the rise. But it’s not just BTL, digital solutions are also gaining popularity.

    Are there are certain types of marketers who have a greater affinity for BTL? (eg FMCG, durables, auto, etc)

    Any marketer who wants to engage with consumers will by and large look at BTL solutions as the way forward. FMCG brands use BTL as a tool not just to promote products but also for sampling new products. Auto brands, use BTL to expose the physical car or bike to a larger audience and give them a 1st hand touch and feel of the vehicle beyond a showroom. So, yes, different brands use BTL in for different needs and to achieve different results. BTL is also a great tool for influencing consumers at the point of sale.

    Typically what is the break-up of spends…. ATL v/s BTL?

    Varies from industry and brand, but is fast growing. For some it’s close to 30-40% for some even higher.  But as mentioned, looking ahead, a BTL – Digital solution is the way forward. Consumers will demand it and brands will have to follow suit.

    Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion for your clients?

    Ranges from localised promotions to mall displays to school and college contact programmes to modern trade activities, events internal and external, roadshows, conferences and exhibitions. Quite honestly just about everything and everywhere.

    In terms of generating results esp from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?

    A tough one to call. BTL solutions provide more focused results as compared to traditional spray and pray advertising. So if the need is to engage with consumers one-on-one, BTL is the way. But here again having a digital layer is critical.

    While sales and salience are good indicators of its success, what are the attributes you/your clients look at to measure the success of a BTL campaign?

    It depends on the requirement. If it’s a new product launch and sampling, then that’s measurable, but if it’s just promoting a product to drive sales, it’s very tough to work out the math on how many people bought a product after any sort of BTL engagement vis-à-vis an ATL campaign. The only other measurable element is cost per contact. Participation and experience delivered are tough to quantify.

    There are many organisations who often do new launches almost entirely on BTL aided with an outdoor and/or digital blitz? Your view on this? Given rising media costs, do you see BTL managing on its own, without ATL?

    Some brands do launch with BTL as their marketing backbone, but that’s not a one-size-fits-all model. A combination of ATL, BTL and Digital is in my mind critical and the most effective.


  • After having lost the Agency of the Year title last year, the now 9-time winner wins big. Madison was second in the rankings

    It’s Mindshare on the Top again.

    A jubilant Mindshare team. Picture by Abhinav Kocharekar, Courtesy DNA

     

     

    When Ravi Rao, Leader, Mindshare South Asia spoke to MxMIndia on the eve of his departure to Dubai as Chief Client Officer – MENA in April, we asked him if he considered the agency’s loss at the Emvies last year, as a low during his stint. He said it was just a “momentary despair in the longest winning streak of Mindshare; we will continue to haunt others, year after year”. At the Emvies 2015 on Friday, Mindshare grabbed the title of Agency of the Year with five Gold, eight Silver and 17 Bronze metals. The now nine-time winner had its entire team in attendance, including COO Mindshare Asia Pacific Gowthaman Ragothaman and Prasanth (‘PK’) Kumar, who took over from Rao in March this year and had earlier said he was confident of winning the Agency of the Year crown this time. “There’s been lots of great work in the last year that Mindshare has done across clients, and a lot of effort into bringing in diversified and other business categories,” he had said. Friday’s win, however, left him cheering out loud for his team. “The voice is gone, but the action is full on,”  he said. (See Emvies points tally table here)

     

    Even though Maxus lost its last year’s glory to older sibling Mindshare, MD, Kartik Sharma was unfazed. “Whenever we’ve won or lost, our focus has always been our clients,” he said. “We’re very happy with the quality of work we’ve done. We’ve got quite a lot of clients in last two or three years and we continue to do some interesting work with them. He added: “Our focus has been more digital and analytics for the last couple of years. And today, if you saw the kind of awards that we’ve won, they had a layer of either of the two. But there’s always scope for improvement, and we’ll work on that.” Maxus was third in the pecking order of agencies, while Lodestar UM was at No. 4.

     

    Sam Balsara, Chairman, Madison World, whose agency was the first runner-up for the title of Agency of the Year, also said he was happy with his agency’s performance which was their best so far at the Emvies. Madison took home six Gold, four Silver and nine Bronze metals.

     

    Meanwhile, Tata Sky was conferred with the Client of the Year award, with Procter & Gamble India the first runners-up and Marico, a close third.

     

    Emvies 2015 launched a new category too, Media Partner of the Year, which was conferred on partners across various media. While the award for TV was won by Pogo, The Times of India walked away with the award in the print category. In the cinema category, it was won by Rohit Shetty’s Film Production house, in radio it was Big FM, while Torrent Sites and Google Ecosystem received the award in the digital segment.

     

    This year’s edition was the 15th of the Emvies. And Punitha Arumugam, Chairperson of the Emvies’ Committee and a senior media specialist herself, said it was the best she had seen so far. “The highlight this year was the fact that we started the process of online entries,” she said. “Secondly, we started including media owners in the Emvies because earlier we had only media agencies; then moved to media agencies plus client, and now from client to media owners. It’s been very exciting for us.” Since she’s not a part of a media agency any more, we asked Arumugam to trend-spot and tell us what she thinks of the way the media business is going, given the Emvies showing this year. “What we see is that digital probably gets the highest number of entries, and also the highest growth in terms of the number of entries year-to-year,” she said. “You’re seeing a genuine shift to digital. Even in offline media entries, for example, you get to see a lot more digital as a part of the whole product.”

     

    Another change that has taken place over the years, according to her, is in the field of data analytics and research, as evidenced from the number of entries going up and the amount of focus that agencies are putting on this.

     

    Arumugam was bullish about the spends on digital increasing with time since all agencies are now incorporating digital in various ways and moving towards it, even if at a slow pace. “While clients may be spending 10-15 per cent [of their budget] on digital, when you walk into any office, 80 per cent of the conversation is about online. Hopefully, the budgets will follow the conversations very soon,” she said, as celebratory cheers, accompanied by the beating of dholaks, took over the venue to get the party going.

     

    A part of this report first appeared in dna of brands

     

  • We saw a rare public display of emotions from GroupM South Asia CEO CVL Srinivas in the Mindshare victory celebrations on Emvies 2015 night

    We are all winners: CVL Srinivas

    Your position would be like that of Serena and Venus Williams’ father – to have one daughter win and the other lose, isn’t it?

    For me, I think, we are all winners. All [the agencies have] done extremely well and at the end of the day, one agency has to come out as a winner, and it happened to be Mindshare. Maxus, I thought, put up a tough fight and ended up in the Top Three. What’s heartening to know is that we did well across agencies and across clients. Overall, it’s been a fabulous night and we’re going to party hard.

     

    What do you think led to Mindshare gaining the No 1 spot?

    Mindshare had a fabulous body of work, not just across clients, but also across all the different categories. They’ve really managed to institutionalise excellence across the entire agency. Mindshare is India’s No 1 standalone agency. But when you become No 1 and keep winning, it’s also challenging to keep the team motivated and continue to do well, year after year. That’s something that’s there in the DNA of Mindshare. They have a new leader in Prashant Kumar who took over the reins at Mindshare a few months ago, and I think that has brought in a lot more energy and passion. They’re growing from strength to strength.

     

    Madison gave a pretty good fight at the end?

    The Emvies night is really the big night for all of us in the media industry and it’s the most looked-forward-to event in the year for all the boys and girls who toil very hard in the office every day. There’s been a lot of build up and anticipation in the last few weeks. Of course, Mindshare had a lot of shortlists, so they were expecting to do well. But as we’ve seen in the past, it’s not necessary that the agency with a lot of shortlists will win the Agency of the Year title. But I think they managed to pull through in the end by quite a healthy margin. Madison also did pretty well. In fact, there was great work, not just from Madison, but some of the other agencies as well. So we need to ensure that we don’t get complacent. We have to come back next year and try to do even better.

     

    What were the trends that you could see from the results of this year?

    Winning an award has become important not just for agencies, but also clients. Today, we find a lot of our clients telling us to work hard and to actually get them fame as well. All the hype that goes into awards in our industry, is actually helping the fraternity raise the bar in terms of quality of work. And today, we’re getting a lot more support from our clients and partners. A good thing that was done this year was that there was a recognition for media partners too at the Emvies. So it’s good if all stakeholders are celebrated equally because all of us come together to create great work.

     

    What would be your message to the team at Maxus?

    Maxus has won many titles in the past and continues to do well in many other awards. I’m sure they’ll be a tad disappointed for having come close and still not winning the Agency of the Year title. But knowing Maxus, I’m sure they’re going to go back and put shoulder to the wheel and try and come out Number One next year.

     

  • Once a user logins to the website and signs in via Facebook or email, all the images of the person and their partner are collated together to create a video montage

    Maxus unveils unique campaign for Platinum Guild India

    By A Correspondent

     

    Global communications consultancy firm Maxus in collaboration with Platinum Guild India has created an exclusive microsite – www.oureverlastinglove.in wherein couples can create a personalized video of the special moments of togetherness that make their journey extraordinary.

     

    Couples around the world like to share manifestations of their journey together on various social media platforms. On the basis of this understanding and building on this innate desire, Maxus presents couples with a platform where they can curate their most rejoiced memories and bring to life their special moments.

     

    “Our social timelines have become a destination that stores a lot of our memories. We found an innovative way of allowing people to use the content on their timeline to express their feelings to their partner and loved ones. Our Everlasting Love, is a way for everyone to look back on their special memories and celebrate their Platinum Day of Love, through a heartfelt visual representation of their unique love story,” said Vishal Jacob, National Director – Digital, Maxus India.

     

    Speaking about the initiative Vaishali Banerjee, Managing Director, Platinum Guild India said, “Today Platinum is an expression of love, intimacy and commitment between young couples.  Platinum Day of Love is about discovering true love and celebrating it with precious platinum. Building on the back of this campaign we wanted to give young couples the opportunity to celebrate not just their Platinum Day of Love but their entire journey of togetherness through a video. We feel social media is a perfect platform to interact with couples and their friends and encourage them to share their stories of everlasting love”.

     

    Once a user logins to the website and signs in via Facebook or email, all the images of the person and their partner are collated together to create a video montage. A feature to upload additional images is also available. Each of these videos can be shared on Facebook and Twitter and can be viewed by their friends and loved ones.

     

     

  • Controversies and competing leagues notwithstanding, cricket is still the most lucrative sport for brands to invest in, writes Kartik Sharma, MD, Maxus South Asia

    Six reasons Cricket still Rules for Brands to Invest in

     

    By Kartik Sharma

     

    Multiple leagues, many controversies. But nothing seems to dent the popularity of cricket in the country. As fans throng the stadia and the TRPs go through the roof, clearly this is still the most lucrative sport for brands to invest in. Here are the reasons why:

     

    1. Popular by far: Cricket is the most popular sport in India and is an integral part of Indian sports culture. With the help of cricket, brands are able to reach out to a wide range of audiences. Consistently investing in cricket helps a brand build a strong bond with its target group. Despite the recent controversies surrounding cricket, the popularity of the sport has not diminished.

     

    2. Wide reach: Cricket is a powerful platform for brands to promote their new campaigns, and also for new brands trying to establish themselves in the market. The sport’s ability to generate extensive reach makes it an attractive option for brands, and thereby helps them in jump-starting awareness in a very short span of time

     

    3. Mainstream media option: Out of 365 days in a year, cricket is played for over 200 days (including one-day tournaments, test and T20 matches). With cricket becoming part of a multi-screen world — digital streaming, TV channel apps and such — the popularity, affinity and resonance with the sport is still on the rise. These days, marketers and agencies alike, evaluate cricket regularly as part of mainstream media options and it is no longer seen as a one-off event.

     

    4. Proven ROI: Return-on-investment studies conducted by our agency clearly proves that the power of cricket in impacting business goals for various categories is very high. It not only helps in growing business, but also helps brands which are investing in cricket in defending themselves from competitive brands and media activity which otherwise would have adversely impacted business goals.

     

    5. Media amplifier: The strength of cricket is its ability to act as a great media multiplier. Research has proven that conversations and recall for brands engaged on the cricketing platform is high. The uplift in key brand measures as a result of investing in cricket, is also significant. For new brands, it also helps to build and maintain brand salience for many weeks — even after the end of cricketing matches/tournaments.

     

    6. Integrations: Cricket gives opportunities to brands to integrate their messaging beyond plain sponsorships and logo placements. Brands which have strategically used both on-air and on-ground assets, tend to generate higher than normal returns on their media investment.

     

    Kartik Sharma is Managing Director of Maxus, South Asia. This article first appeared in ‘dna of brands’ dated August 3, 2015

     

  • This is the first time a sponsorship deal for the BCCI has been concluded by a media agency

    Maxus & GroupM ESP win BCCI cricket home series sponsorship rights for PayTM

    By A Correspondent

     

    Media agency Maxus, with GroupM ESP, has won the sponsorship rights for PayTM, for all home cricket series to be played from September 2015 to October 2019. The bids were opened by the BCCI in New Delhi yesterday and announced immediately. The deal is valued at Rs 203.28 crores for 84 matches for the four-year period.

    This is the first time a sponsorship deal for the BCCI has been concluded by a media agency.

     

    Kartik Sharma

    Kartik Sharma, Managing Director, Maxus South Asia said, “We are extremely happy for partnering with PayTM, and helping them win the BCCI rights. Until now cricket has been dominated by other mature categories and this is the first time an e-commerce brand will be using the platform to connect and engage with its consumer base.”

     

    Shankar Nath, Senior VP commented: “We are delighted at becoming the Title Sponsor for all BCCI India cricket for the next four years. We firmly believe the partnership with cricket in India will help establish us even more as the dominant mobile commerce company in the country. As a growing brand which has big plans for a billion strong Indians there is no platform better than cricket in India.”

     

  • This win comes after a multi-agency pitch by the Maxus Bengaluru team headed by Sanchayeeta Verma, South Head, Maxus

    Maxus wins Paper Boat mandate

    By A Correspondent

     

    Sanchayeeta Verma

    GroupM media agency Maxus has bagged the media mandate for Paper Boat. This win comes after a multi-agency pitch by the Maxus Bengaluru team headed by Sanchayeeta Verma, South Head, Maxus.

     

    Commenting on the occasion, Parvesh Debuka, Marketing Head, Paper Boat, “’My love affair with Maxus began some time ago. I was bowled over by their charm (and the data analytics). I think it will be lots of fun working together.”

     

    Commenting on the win, Verma said, “We are extremely delighted to have Paper Boat with us. Our vision is two-fold – one to make the drink extremely popular and increase their visibility. The second would be to communicate their brand proposition of „memories‟ through an effective media mix and creative strategies. Our approach will be both strategic and tactical for meeting our goals!”

     

  • Maxus has elevated some of its key people strengthened the top management team

    Maxus strengthens ​top deck with elevations

    By A Correspondent​

     

    ​​Maxus has ​announced elevations of some of its key people and strengthened the top management team.

     

    Anand Chakravarthy who joined last year as Head of Maxus West has been promoted to Managing Partner. Anand will continue to be based at Mumbai, leading the West team and expansion plans.

     

    ​​Unny Radhakrishnan who heads the digital practice for Maxus South Asia has been promoted as Chief Digital Officer. In his new role, he will be additionally responsible for developing new practices & investments and new offerings from Maxus Metalworks (the creative R&D lab of Maxus).

     

    Vishal Jacob who was leading Digital Strategy earlier has been promoted as National Director – Digital. In his new role, Vishal will take over from Unny and be responsible for the digital services of Maxus across offices.

     

    ​Sairam Ranganathan has been promoted as General Manager. Sai currently heads Digital for Maxus West. Additionally, he will be also responsible for the Digital Media Product and digital training needs.

     

    ​And lastly, ​Mimi Deb who joined Maxus Delhi 3 years ago as client leader has been elevated to General Manager. She will lead several large new businesses like Shopclues and several other blue chip clients which the agency won recently.

  • The tool has been developed keeping in mind the need for real time impact of TV on website traffic

    Maxus unveils proprietary tool ‘Maxus T2D’

    By A Correspondent

     

    Maxus has announced the launch of a revolutionary tool—’T2D’, for planning excellence in e-commerce category. The tool has been developed keeping in mind the need for real time impact of TV on website traffic.

     

    Maxus T2D is a screen to screen predictor from television to digital. As television contributes to more than 70 per cent of spends in e-commerce category, the Maxus T2D tool offers an easy platform to optimize TV plans to build website traffic. This innovative tool would be able to deliver plans that closely impact platform level numbers and hence focus on direct impact.

     

    The highlight of the T2D Maxus tool is that it delivers sharper planning focus to drive traffic and predicts the lag effect of TV to the platform (website, app) traffic.

     

    Speaking about the relevant of this innovative tool in the contemporary e-commerce landscape, Kartik Sharma, Managing Director, Maxus said, “With the ever evolving market dynamics in the ecommerce sector, it is important to find innovative solutions to pressing business roadblocks. Our new offering T2D tool helps in leveraging the immense clout of the television medium to scale up website traffic. This tool has already found a great resonance with the e-commerce industry practitioners and it is going to be the next value addition in the sector that is always on the lookout for innovative approach to business challenges and changes.”

     

    Priti Murthy

    Priti Murthy, Chief Strategy Officer, Maxus, adds, “We are excited about our new product—the T2D Maxus tool that captures the power of the television medium for building website traffic. Given the reality and growing spurt of the e-commerce market, we firmly believe that the clients will benefit from this revolutionary tool to make better media decisions. Also, on a whole this will change the impact of television on website traffic.”

     

  • Maxus South has been growing rapidly and handles some of the most prestigious clients of the region

    Maxus appoints Anil Sathiraju as General Manager

    By A Correspondent

     

    Anil Sathiraju

    Global media & communication planning firm Maxus has further strengthened its top management appointing Anil Sathiraju as General Manager, Maxus South 2.

     

    Maxus South has been growing rapidly and handles some of the most prestigious clients of the region. Anil Sathiraju will report in to Sanchayeeta Verma- Managing Partner, Maxus South India & South Asia. With Anil coming on board, Maxus consolidates the senior management strength in the South, along with Kishankumar Shyamalan as GM South 1.

     

    Kartik Sharma

    Kartik Sharma, Managing Director, Maxus South Asia said “Our South operations have been the trail blazers in many areas for Maxus and we are looking forward to scale new heights. Anil is an important and strategic addition keeping this in mind.”

     

    Commenting on the new appointment Sanchayeeta Verma- Managing Partner, South India & South Asia, Maxus said, “The media landscape is possibly at its most dynamic state today. It’s a time of rapid and big changes. Not only do we have to stay on top of this and ensure that we incorporate the new state of things in the way we do the communication planning for our brands, we also have to ensure executional excellence so that strategy translates to reality. On top of it in today’s uncertain economic conditions, our media monies have to result into tangible business results for our brands. All of this means, more engagement & more speed at the senior management level. This prompted us to create two distinct SBUs within Maxus South and bring in the best people to man them, i.e, Anil & Kishan. Anil typifies Maxus PACE and we are delighted to have him on board.”

     

    In his earlier role Anil was Associate VP & Head South, Mudra Max Pvt. Ltd. With over 19 years of experience he has handled many of the top clients in South India some of which are the TTK Prestige, Cycle Agarbathies, Tata Gold Plus, Eenadu Group, Ashok Leyland, Wipro Consumer Care, Sobha Developers, Wildcraft, Jyothy Laboratories, Beauty Cosmetics (now CavinKare).

     

  • The Maxus Delhi team will be managing the account under the aegis of Navin Khemka

    Maxus bags media AOR for Shopclues

    By A Correspondent

     

    Maxus has won the prestigious media planning duties for India’s first and largest managed marketplace, Shopclues.com. The Maxus Delhi team will be managing the account under the aegis of Navin Khemka , Managing Partner Maxus .This was won by maxus after a multi agency compettive pitch.

     

    On winning the worthy account Kartik Sharma, Managing Director, Maxus South Asia expressed, “It is indeed a prestigious win for us and we are thrilled to partner with the Shopclues team and to grow with them as their business scales newer heights. We are particularly excited to bring out the best business-oriented solutions for them.”

     

    Radhika Aggarwal, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer said “We are on a very rapid growth orbit and after careful evaluation we decided Maxus will be an ideal partner for driving this growth engine. We are excited to have Maxus on board and confident that their innovative strategic and creative inputs will create the right buzz that we as a brand need today. We expect a lot of superlative work on our brand. Congratulations to Maxus once again”

     

  • The thought-provoking initiative devised by Maxus ESP for Vodafone India, highlighted some of the most exciting emerging business ventures

    Maxus creates special innovation platform for Vodafone

    By A Correspondent

     

    When the seeds for a successful business venture are sown, it takes a great amount of passion and the right opportunities for it to become prosperous. Devising a fresh media gratification marketing plan for its client Vodafone, Maxus has endeavored to assimilate special branded content and programming, along with a consolidated promotion package, in order to reach out to the right audience at a phenomenal scale.

     

    The thought-provoking initiative devised by Maxus ESP for Vodafone India, highlighted some of the most exciting emerging business ventures, where entrepreneurs attempted, in a pitch-perfect platform, to emphasize their position on reasons why Vodafone should provide them with a strong media and consultancy backing. And the prize? The top ten list featured on India’s biggest business news channel, CNBC-TV18, the prestigious Forbes India magazine, business tabloid Mint and the online business portal moneycontrol.com.

     

    Providing details of the same, Shailja Vohra, National Director, Maxus ESP informed, “Vodafone has partnered with Maxus ESP to devise and implement  the content strategy campaign which began with a CALL FOR ENTRY Stage promoted on Mint, Forbes, CNBC-TV18, Moneycontrol.com and the strong Social Media assets of the TV18 group. At the same time, India’s most well-known business news anchor, Shereen Bhan, is the face of this strategic campaign and is showcased in the CFE promos.”

     

    “The content extended across digital, on-air and in-show branding. This unique initiative also proved that our business acumen lies in delivering the best, for our esteemed client” she added.